Sunday, March 21, 2010

Liz Carpenter RIP

Liz Carpenter was Press Secretary for Lady Bird Johnson during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, and because she was there at the time, the task fell to her to write LBJ's statement that he delivered to the nation after the assassination of JFK. She was also assistant secretary of the U.S. Department of Education under President Jimmy Carter, on the International Women's Year Commission under President Gerald Ford and on the White House Conference on Aging under President Bill Clinton. She co-founded the National Women's Political Caucus and co-chaired ERAmerica.

We got to spend a good part of an evening with Ms. Carpenter in 2005 while side-by-side occupying the front rail of Willie Nelson's all-star benefit concert for Asian tsunami relief. She said she was writing a book about Bobbie Nelson (Willie's sister and piano player) but I don't know if that book was ever published. She also gave us a giggle at one point when she said she didn't know who Joe Ely was but he sure did sweat a lot.

She was an author, and progressive activist to the end, a Texas treasure, a yellow-dog Democrat and a true Austinite.___